hackthis_archive (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hackthis_archive) wrote2004-06-23 12:19 pm
hackthis_archive) wrote2004-06-23 12:19 pm
OMG, Tres adorable.
I wanted to write happy fic for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ethrosdemon and serialkarma. So I did, after much blood, sweat and tears. And that was just from me.
Harry Potter
Ron/Neville
Delicate
Neville would never lurk. He wouldn’t hover or hop up and down on one leg to pass the time while he waited, either. He wouldn’t do these things, because that would require him to be waiting for Ron by the changing rooms after practise, and that’s not what Neville’s doing. Neville’s actually on his way to the greenhouses to attend to some special Sleeper Posies for Professor Sprout; he’s just taking the long, really effing indirect route to the greenhouses, via the library and the pitch and the changing rooms. So if he happens to be passing by the changing rooms at the exact same time that Ron’s leaving them, well, then that’s all right. Neville would never hover about like a girlfriend waiting for her boyfriend, or his boyfriend, or whatever. He just wouldn’t do it. The waiting, not the other ‘doing it.’
Neville tries not think about the other ‘doing it’ too much, because then he starts to stammer and stutter. His brain begins to hurt, and his stomach does funny things, and then he gets really hot. In the middle of December.
Not that any of this is actually happening, because Neville’s not waiting for Ron. He’s on his way to the greenhouses, and he’s just leaning against the gnarled oak near the Quidditch changing rooms to study something or other. Perhaps he’s waiting to converse with the wood sprite that lives there.
“All right, Neville?”
Perhaps when Neville dies from a coronary, Ron will miss him. Neville certainly hopes so, because his heart just nearly jumped out his chest, he can hear it hammering in his ears and it would be a shame if that was all for naught. He puts his hand over his chest, just to make sure it’s still there. “Could you announce it the next time you’re going sneak up on me and scare me half to death?” he asks.
Ron’s smile reminds Neville why he’s there in the first place. “If I announced it, then it wouldn’t be half as much fun, now would it?” he says, grinning and pushing wet, ginger hair behind his ears.
Ron hesitates when he’s done speaking as though he’s not sure if now's a good time to wind up Neville or not. Sometimes they’re just two mates mucking about and other times, well, they’re still working out the kinks in their ‘thing.’ Some days it feels as though they’ve just stumbled out of that broom closet after Ron snogged him. Or after he snogged Ron. It’s a toss up as to who started it, but neither one has seemed inclined to stop it.
They probably could’ve just laughed it off at the time, but then Ron started avoiding him, which forced Neville to corner him after Charms to try and sort it out. And then he apologized and Ron said he didn’t have to and then there was snogging, again, and it’s become this long drawn out thing which has pretty much seen them necking all over the school.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, and Neville’s fingers itch to touch Ron as he shifts from one foot to another anxiously. “Because you enjoy seeing me scared half to death?” he asks with a frown, sliding his hand down his chest and slipping it into the pocket of his trousers.
“No! No, because you were, um, there and I thought. Well, I thought you might be waiting for me, but if you weren’t that’s okay.” Ron’s words are muffled somewhat as he spends several minutes looking down to roll up the sleeves of his shirt.
Neville blinks, at a loss for how to respond.
“Were you waiting for me though?” Ron asks, stepping closer and sending Neville’s heart rate skyrocketing again.
“What? No! No. Maybe?” Neville stammers before stepping back into the branches of the tree. When a lower branch pokes him in the backside, he winds up stumbling forward instead of back and bumps noses with Ron.
Neville can count the freckles on Ron’s nose, and with Ron’s fringe out of the way he can see how green Ron’s eyes are. When did he become such a girl? Not that that really matters since now would be a cracking time for Ron to snog him or for him to snog Ron; he’s not picky.
Ron’s breath is warm against Neville’s mouth and all they have to do is lean forward, and -- and Neville didn’t come out here for this.
Okay, he did, but he’s supposed to be somewhere else right now.
“Fuck me,” he says remembering his prior engagement somewhat late. Ron’s shock is laughable, but Neville steps around him without ceremony. “I’ve got to go.”
“Sorry, what?” Ron’s hand is on Neville’s arm, even as Neville’s moving away. There’s a strange mixture of fear and confusion on Ron’s face, which Neville’s never seen before. He’s always thought of Ron as the brave one. Not that he’s a big girl’s blouse himself; he’s got a broken nose to prove that.
Ron’s fingers are warm on his bicep. “I’m supposed to be at the greenhouse right now.”
“Right now?” Ron parrots. “But you were – and you said. Ah, you didn’t mean what...” Ron’s voice drops off as Neville looks from Ron to the greenhouses in the distance. Professor Sprout’s going to make him shift fertiliser all afternoon if he doesn’t hurry up.
“I didn’t mean what?” he asks distractedly.
“What you just said.”
“What I just said about what?” Neville can hear the impatient note in his voice, and he only turns back when Ron releases his arm. Ron’s mouth is a thin, pink line, and Neville shakes his head trying to sort out where their conversation has gone.
It hits him like a bludger. “You thought I meant – and you. You want that? You want to shag me?”
“Well, not right here,” Ron clarifies.
Gobsmacked doesn’t begin to cover it. “I have to -- um, greenhouses.” Neville points in their general direction by way of explanation, not sure he’s got enough brain cells left to be coherent just now.
The radiance of Ron’s smile obliterates the rest of Neville’s thoughts. “All right,” he says. “Lets get on with it then.”
*
It’s still new; they’re still new -- Ron and Neville and this thing between them, because there is definitely something there. Something that makes Neville smile for no reason in the halls and makes him colour when people look at him for too long. This thing with Ron is so new to him that it’s frightening and scary like Snape. Or not like Snape, because Snape is really bloody scary in a bad sense and this thing with Ron is scary in a good, new sense. Not like seedlings pressing up from fresh dragon fertiliser way, more in that 'I fancy you, but Merlin, it's odd that you fancy me, too' way. Yes, that's how they are, because it really is a 'they' now.
Ron and Neville, Neville and Ron, and Morgan le Fay, it's so strange for Neville to actually think about this. Them. But it's all he can think about. They are all he can think about anymore.
When Neville's not with Ron all he can think about how Ron's eyelashes are almost invisible and how Ron’s eyes hide behind his fringe as though he’s trying to separate himself from the rest of the world. When Ron’s not sitting next to him at dinner or across the aisle from him during lecture, Neville can’t help but wonder what he’s doing and with who and whether or not Ron’s thinking about him as well.
Neville can’t believe the sappy tripe that Ron makes him think sometimes. It’s only been five weeks, and yet, Neville can’t really imagine what he did before Ron was, well, his, because Ron is really Neville’s something or other. They don’t have a name for it or anything, Neville’s not running down the halls screaming for his boyfriend. That would just be stupid and daft, and Neville doesn’t need Ron to save him from anybody or anything, except maybe himself, and then only sometimes, because when he’s in his element, Neville can handle himself.
Like now, even though he’s on his hands and knees in Greenhouse C, and he’s up to his elbows in dirt, wearing bright yellow dragon-hide gloves, Neville feels like he could take on, well, a Slytherin at least. Just not a big one.
“...so then I said that I would snog Malfoy in front of the entire year and jump off the Astronomy tower.”
“Sorry, what?” Neville’s brain snaps back to the present, and when Ron waves a hand in front of his face Neville looks up briefly and smiles.
The smirk on Ron’s face is huge and his shoulders shake as he chuckles to himself. “You’re not listening to me, are you?” he says.
Neville can’t help noticing how long Ron’s fingers are when he runs them through his hair, and Neville’s throat constricts as Ron’s fingers get tangled somewhere near the nape of his neck. Neville adores Ron’s fingers. They’re long and tapered and there are callouses in all the really good places.
Neville’s palms are damp inside the gloves and he wiggles his fingers in the dirt to free them. “Of course I am, you said… um, what’d you say again?” he asks, sitting back on his haunches and swiping his arm across his forehead. He doesn’t actually have fringe or long hair of any sort anymore, but he’s not yet accustomed to the short fuzz and sometimes he can still feel hair where there isn’t any.
Ron leans against the wall, crossing his feet at the ankles and slipping his hands into his pockets. Ron’s impossibly tall, but Neville’s not exactly short himself and he’s never really noticed the freckles on Ron’s forearms before, but now that he’s eye level with Ron’s wrists and, um, Ron’s groin...
“I said I planned to shag Harry in the Great Hall and then ask Snape to marry me.”
“Right. Have at it,” Neville says, attempting to drag his eyes away from the entirely-too-tempting photograph Ron’s making, so he can get back to the posies in front of him. Maybe if he finishes playing in the dirt at some point today, he and Ron can do things.
Dirty, illicit, filthy things in the back of the greenhouse.
Neville can’t help laughing to himself under his breath. It must be something in the dirt that he reacts to, as he’s fairly certain no one else gets horny surrounded by dirt and plants, but the thought of pulling Ron down on the floor and then smearing dirt all over his white button-down has Neville very attuned to how close Ron really is to him. Which is obviously why he snaps the head off a defenseless flower. The resulting trilling dirge from the other posies breaks him right out of his reverie yet again.
“You’re really not listening to a word I’m saying are you?” Neville shakes his head when Ron’s bright eyes peer into his face, and he blinks twice before he realises that Ron’s dropped down next to him on the greenhouse floor. As far as schoolboy fantasies go, this one could turn out to be really good for Neville, except that Ron seems a bit concerned and Neville can’t have that. Even though when Ron’s concerned he gets this line between his eyebrows that Neville finds really hot.
“Sorry,” he says sheepishly, pulling a glove off and rubbing his head. “I get a bit distracted when I’m working.”
“Is that why you just murdered that flower?”
“It was an accident!” Neville says.
Ron’s gaze is all careful consideration, and Neville absently brushes the front of his shirt in case it’s filthy. Well, filthier that he already is for being in the dirt and thinking about licking that hollow at the base of Ron’s throat.
“Where’d you go, just then?” Ron asks.
Neville makes a noise. “Um, nowhere?”
“Right. Pull the other one -- it’s got bells on.” Ron’s scowl is the last thing Neville’s expecting.
“Sorry -- what?”
“You’ve been acting out of sorts all afternoon. First, by the shed, and now here. Is there something you want to tell me? Are you trying to break it off with me?”
“What? Sorry? Where – what? Have I missed something?” Neville has no idea what’s happening right now. He and Ron are having a conversation, but they’re not speaking the same language at all. It’s like out by the tree again, with the shagging, or not so much with the shagging; maybe it’s a dialect of Boy Gibberish that Neville’s not learned yet.
Whatever language Ron’s speaking, it’s clear that Neville needs to learn it in a hurry, especially since Ron is getting to his feet. Ron really is impossibly tall, all legs and freckles; Neville’s done for. So why’s Ron leaving?
Neville can’t have that.
“Sit. Down,” says someone who sounds quite a bit like Neville. Except that Neville’s voice isn’t usually that deep or that forceful. Unless he’s upset, which he thinks he might be.
Neville tilts his head back to find Ron staring at him as though he’s just sprouted antennae. Not that Neville could really blame him, but this is important. “I said, ‘Sit down, Ron’. Please.”
“Are you ordering me about?” Incredulous doesn’t really begin to cover Ron’s tone, and Neville’s not certain what to call the look on Ron’s face. ‘Shocked’ might work for starters.
“I haven’t the foggiest idea what you’re on about, so I’ll thank you to sit down, stop acting like a wronged girlfriend and explain yourself. Please.” Neville clearly enunciates every word as he takes off his other glove and hurtles it into the dirt. He winces when one of the posies makes an injured noise. Professor Sprout is going to flay him.
“Are you calling me a girl?” The pitch of Ron’s voice seems to be all over the register. One moment it’s very low and the next it’s impossibly high and tight; his eyes glitter defiantly, even in the filtered greenhouse light, and Neville swallows.
“I’m not calling you anything,” he says. “Maybe that’s the problem.”
“You’ve lost me,” Ron begins, causing Neville’s chest to seize up in a horrible manner. “I have no idea what’s going on in your head today. You want to shag, you murder flowers and then you yell. What’ve you done with Neville Longbottom, that bloke I was dating?”
“It is me,” Neville protests glancing at his lap and then patting his head his head the same time to make certain about the antennae. “I’ve not changed at all; I’m the same bloke I always was, I just – are you going to stand about all day?’
“Maybe. Don’t know yet. Haven’t decided.”
Ron shifts from one foot to the other, slipping his hands into his pockets again. It takes a lot of Neville’s willpower not to just stare at Ron’s crotch. “Do you enjoy being this impossible?” he asks.
“Me? I’m not the one crawling about on my hands and knees with my arse in the air or rolling about in the dirt in my tee shirt that shows off my stomach, making my boyfriend’s trousers too tight!”
The noise Neville makes doesn’t really have a description. “Uh, sorry?”
“Too fucking right,” Ron snaps. He scratches his head, and then crouches down to Neville’s eyelevel. “You’re more trouble than any girl I’ve ever met, Neville. Could you not have really long eyelashes and a really fit arse? Is that too much to ask?”
“Uh, no?” Neville licks his lips only because he’s mirroring Ron, except he bets that Ron’s lips don’t taste like pumpkin juice and dirt. Neville’s fingers twitch when Ron puts a hand down to steady himself.
“So what’s the problem then? Do you just not fancy me anymore? Found somebody else? I told Terry Boot if I caught him sniffing around you, again, I’d have him.“
The loud guffaw that escapes from Neville is less like a laugh and more like a noise of ‘stop taking the piss.’ “Ron.”
“Neville?”
“Shut up.”
Ron’s look of shock quickly slips into a smirk. “See, there you go again, being bossy. You’ve been spending too much time with Hermione.”
“Me? I’m not the one who’s spent the last seven years as part of Harryronhermione.” It’s entirely too easy for Neville to push Ron over right now. So he does.
There’s something refreshing about seeing Ron sprawled out on his arse that makes Neville grin – and he’s still grinning when he gets to his knees and crawls over Ron.
“Now what’s this about me and Terry Boot?” Neville’s eyes narrow as Ron licks his lips again and stretches out against the brick footpath.
Neville’s not necessarily used to being the one on top, but that doesn’t mean he’s used to being on the bottom either.
They’ll have to sort that out eventually. Or not.
Neville makes a noise when Ron’s fingers brush against his mouth. “I heard him saying you’d become quite the looker,” Ron says.
Neville’s brain whirrs and his arithmancy comes up with five sickles and eight gnuts. “Is that why he’s got a black eye?”
When Ron shrugs, Neville’s eyes are drawn down to the hollow of Ron’s neck. Ron seems to take a special sadistic delight in wearing his ties too loose and keeping the top button of his shirt undone. The pale expanse of freckled skin goes a long way to keeping Neville undone. Ron’s all muscle and sinew and tendon. Merlin’s beard.
“He slipped and met my fist, I couldn’t help that.”
This should be the part where Neville points out that he can fight his own battles, but instead he finds himself licking Ron’s neck, because it’s there and so is Ron and they’re seventeen year-old boys. They’re required to do this. At least that’s what the erection in Neville’s trousers is saying.
Ron makes a keening noise as Neville licks along the collar of his shirt.
“What’re you doing? Are you mad? We can’t do that here,” Ron protests even as he turns his head to the side to give Neville better access.
“Professor Sprout’s in Greenhouse A.” Neville’s lips brush against the shell of Ron’s ear as he talks, and he rides out Ron’s upward thrust when he nuzzles the spot behind his ear.
Ron tastes like soap and grass and Neville might be sniffing him. Which is just strange. But there’s something about being with Ron that makes Neville reckless and brave, or, his nan might say, stupid.
He smiles against Ron’s skin as long fingers begin rubbing Neville’s hair and pulling Neville toward Ron’s mouth. Whatever objections Ron has are apparently not important enough to stop him from snogging Neville senseless. They certainly don’t stop Ron from flicking his tongue along Neville’s upper lip or licking his way into Neville’s mouth until Neville’s not sure what his own name might be. That’s not even bringing into account the way the Ron’s, well, stroking Neville’s hair, or the way his hands seems to be everywhere at once.
Ron may be on the bottom, but his hands are slipping between Neville’s shirt and his trousers and guiding Neville’s hips towards his own; Ron must have more than two hands. To Neville it feels as though he has a million. Not that Neville’s complaining, because Ron’s hands are everywhere, and Neville can feel how hard Ron is underneath him. He did that.
Neville opens his mouth to say something at the same time that Ron’s thigh wedges between his legs, and Neville’s words become a big slur. “Dyouwantto?”
He doesn’t become any more coherent when Ron thrusts against him. “What’s that?” Ron asks.
“Do you want to shag me?”
Neville’s world comes to a horrific halt when Ron stops rubbing against him. “Why – why are you stopping?”
“Did you just –“ Ron’s voice echoes loudly in the greenhouse, and he lowers his volume drastically. “You did! Circe’s pigs, you just asked me to shag you?’
Neville can feel his face flushing, and he can’t figure out whether to flee or hide, and he attempts to pull away at the same time that Ron tries to pull him forward. They wind up rolling over into a patch of defenseless flowers as Neville buries his head in Ron’s neck.
Neville’s mumbling is somewhat drowned out by the posies’ cacophony of threats about ratting them out to Sprout. “I thought you wanted to.”
“I do!” Ron shouts. “I do,” he says again, speaking lower, and sitting up to look Neville in the eye, “but I didn’t necessarily mean here. This isn’t... Neville, these plants talk; we are not shagging in the greenhouse. I don’t care how keen you are on shrubery.”
“I don’t want to shag you in the greenhouse, either, I just thought--“
“You thought what?”
“I dunno. I mean, I fancy you and I like you and – I just wanted you to know that.”
“I know that. It doesn’t mean we have to shag now. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, shagging, but, um, it doesn’t have to happen today.”
“Oh, so you’ve gone off me?” Neville says.
“Not likely considering how you look right now,” Ron says pointedly staring at the disheveled state of Neville’s clothing, “but maybe we could go some place else?”
Neville’s silent for several seconds under Ron’s questioning gaze, and he’s just opening his mouth to speak when the door to the greenhouse creaks open and Ron freezes.
“Neville Longbottom?”
Neville would know Professor Sprout’s raspy voice anywhere.
“Neville Longbottom?! Are you in here?” The look of complete horror on Ron’s face can’t be that far off from the abject fear that Neville feels on his own. Of all the times to be found rolling in the dirt. Ron makes an ‘oomphing’ sound when Neville tackles him to the floor and covers Ron’s hand with his mouth.
Looking through the rows of tables and plants, Neville can see Professor Sprout’s mud-caked shoes walking their way. He bites his tongue and glares when Ron licks his hand.
“I could’ve sworn I saw him come in here. Ronald Weasley, are you in here? I saw someone with ginger hair come in here. You’d do best to show yourselves!”
Professor Sprout’s boots are coming closer, and Neville can just imagine the owl home to his nan now ...caught rolling in the dirt with Ronald Weasley... not the sort of behaviour one would expect from a Longbottom.
Neville’s just wondering who’s going to take care of Trevor when Professor Sprout’s feet stop two rows over. “Perhaps I shouldn’t partake of those Muggle plants during the work day,” she sighs before turning on her heel and heading back to the door.
Neville exhales deeply when the door shuts behind her, and then he removes his hand from Ron’s mouth.
“Did you want to have detention forever?” he snipes.
Ron doesn’t even have the grace to look apologetic. “If it meant I got to roll in the dirt with you for a bit, I can think of worse things.”
Neville blinks. “Have you been having dirty thoughts about me?”
“Possibly. Definitely,” Ron corrects.
“You’ll have to tell me about them later.”
“I think I can do that, but do you fancy getting off me, first, so we can avoid this detention you’re so riled up about?”
Neville’s sigh slips into a grin. “Well, if we must we must.”
“Anything for a good cause, right?”
“Of course.”
“And to think,” Ron says, “people call Harry the hero.”
-end-
Notes: This entire story inspired by Damien Rice’s ‘Delicate’ which is one of his *two* good songs. (The other one being Volcano).
Dedicated to my girls, who both seem to be having a shitty month, with much love and adoration forlalejandra for beating this, and me, into shape. Neville's hysterical-antennae are dedicated to you.
ethrosdemon and serialkarma. So I did, after much blood, sweat and tears. And that was just from me.Harry Potter
Ron/Neville
Neville would never lurk. He wouldn’t hover or hop up and down on one leg to pass the time while he waited, either. He wouldn’t do these things, because that would require him to be waiting for Ron by the changing rooms after practise, and that’s not what Neville’s doing. Neville’s actually on his way to the greenhouses to attend to some special Sleeper Posies for Professor Sprout; he’s just taking the long, really effing indirect route to the greenhouses, via the library and the pitch and the changing rooms. So if he happens to be passing by the changing rooms at the exact same time that Ron’s leaving them, well, then that’s all right. Neville would never hover about like a girlfriend waiting for her boyfriend, or his boyfriend, or whatever. He just wouldn’t do it. The waiting, not the other ‘doing it.’
Neville tries not think about the other ‘doing it’ too much, because then he starts to stammer and stutter. His brain begins to hurt, and his stomach does funny things, and then he gets really hot. In the middle of December.
Not that any of this is actually happening, because Neville’s not waiting for Ron. He’s on his way to the greenhouses, and he’s just leaning against the gnarled oak near the Quidditch changing rooms to study something or other. Perhaps he’s waiting to converse with the wood sprite that lives there.
“All right, Neville?”
Perhaps when Neville dies from a coronary, Ron will miss him. Neville certainly hopes so, because his heart just nearly jumped out his chest, he can hear it hammering in his ears and it would be a shame if that was all for naught. He puts his hand over his chest, just to make sure it’s still there. “Could you announce it the next time you’re going sneak up on me and scare me half to death?” he asks.
Ron’s smile reminds Neville why he’s there in the first place. “If I announced it, then it wouldn’t be half as much fun, now would it?” he says, grinning and pushing wet, ginger hair behind his ears.
Ron hesitates when he’s done speaking as though he’s not sure if now's a good time to wind up Neville or not. Sometimes they’re just two mates mucking about and other times, well, they’re still working out the kinks in their ‘thing.’ Some days it feels as though they’ve just stumbled out of that broom closet after Ron snogged him. Or after he snogged Ron. It’s a toss up as to who started it, but neither one has seemed inclined to stop it.
They probably could’ve just laughed it off at the time, but then Ron started avoiding him, which forced Neville to corner him after Charms to try and sort it out. And then he apologized and Ron said he didn’t have to and then there was snogging, again, and it’s become this long drawn out thing which has pretty much seen them necking all over the school.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, and Neville’s fingers itch to touch Ron as he shifts from one foot to another anxiously. “Because you enjoy seeing me scared half to death?” he asks with a frown, sliding his hand down his chest and slipping it into the pocket of his trousers.
“No! No, because you were, um, there and I thought. Well, I thought you might be waiting for me, but if you weren’t that’s okay.” Ron’s words are muffled somewhat as he spends several minutes looking down to roll up the sleeves of his shirt.
Neville blinks, at a loss for how to respond.
“Were you waiting for me though?” Ron asks, stepping closer and sending Neville’s heart rate skyrocketing again.
“What? No! No. Maybe?” Neville stammers before stepping back into the branches of the tree. When a lower branch pokes him in the backside, he winds up stumbling forward instead of back and bumps noses with Ron.
Neville can count the freckles on Ron’s nose, and with Ron’s fringe out of the way he can see how green Ron’s eyes are. When did he become such a girl? Not that that really matters since now would be a cracking time for Ron to snog him or for him to snog Ron; he’s not picky.
Ron’s breath is warm against Neville’s mouth and all they have to do is lean forward, and -- and Neville didn’t come out here for this.
Okay, he did, but he’s supposed to be somewhere else right now.
“Fuck me,” he says remembering his prior engagement somewhat late. Ron’s shock is laughable, but Neville steps around him without ceremony. “I’ve got to go.”
“Sorry, what?” Ron’s hand is on Neville’s arm, even as Neville’s moving away. There’s a strange mixture of fear and confusion on Ron’s face, which Neville’s never seen before. He’s always thought of Ron as the brave one. Not that he’s a big girl’s blouse himself; he’s got a broken nose to prove that.
Ron’s fingers are warm on his bicep. “I’m supposed to be at the greenhouse right now.”
“Right now?” Ron parrots. “But you were – and you said. Ah, you didn’t mean what...” Ron’s voice drops off as Neville looks from Ron to the greenhouses in the distance. Professor Sprout’s going to make him shift fertiliser all afternoon if he doesn’t hurry up.
“I didn’t mean what?” he asks distractedly.
“What you just said.”
“What I just said about what?” Neville can hear the impatient note in his voice, and he only turns back when Ron releases his arm. Ron’s mouth is a thin, pink line, and Neville shakes his head trying to sort out where their conversation has gone.
It hits him like a bludger. “You thought I meant – and you. You want that? You want to shag me?”
“Well, not right here,” Ron clarifies.
Gobsmacked doesn’t begin to cover it. “I have to -- um, greenhouses.” Neville points in their general direction by way of explanation, not sure he’s got enough brain cells left to be coherent just now.
The radiance of Ron’s smile obliterates the rest of Neville’s thoughts. “All right,” he says. “Lets get on with it then.”
It’s still new; they’re still new -- Ron and Neville and this thing between them, because there is definitely something there. Something that makes Neville smile for no reason in the halls and makes him colour when people look at him for too long. This thing with Ron is so new to him that it’s frightening and scary like Snape. Or not like Snape, because Snape is really bloody scary in a bad sense and this thing with Ron is scary in a good, new sense. Not like seedlings pressing up from fresh dragon fertiliser way, more in that 'I fancy you, but Merlin, it's odd that you fancy me, too' way. Yes, that's how they are, because it really is a 'they' now.
Ron and Neville, Neville and Ron, and Morgan le Fay, it's so strange for Neville to actually think about this. Them. But it's all he can think about. They are all he can think about anymore.
When Neville's not with Ron all he can think about how Ron's eyelashes are almost invisible and how Ron’s eyes hide behind his fringe as though he’s trying to separate himself from the rest of the world. When Ron’s not sitting next to him at dinner or across the aisle from him during lecture, Neville can’t help but wonder what he’s doing and with who and whether or not Ron’s thinking about him as well.
Neville can’t believe the sappy tripe that Ron makes him think sometimes. It’s only been five weeks, and yet, Neville can’t really imagine what he did before Ron was, well, his, because Ron is really Neville’s something or other. They don’t have a name for it or anything, Neville’s not running down the halls screaming for his boyfriend. That would just be stupid and daft, and Neville doesn’t need Ron to save him from anybody or anything, except maybe himself, and then only sometimes, because when he’s in his element, Neville can handle himself.
Like now, even though he’s on his hands and knees in Greenhouse C, and he’s up to his elbows in dirt, wearing bright yellow dragon-hide gloves, Neville feels like he could take on, well, a Slytherin at least. Just not a big one.
“...so then I said that I would snog Malfoy in front of the entire year and jump off the Astronomy tower.”
“Sorry, what?” Neville’s brain snaps back to the present, and when Ron waves a hand in front of his face Neville looks up briefly and smiles.
The smirk on Ron’s face is huge and his shoulders shake as he chuckles to himself. “You’re not listening to me, are you?” he says.
Neville can’t help noticing how long Ron’s fingers are when he runs them through his hair, and Neville’s throat constricts as Ron’s fingers get tangled somewhere near the nape of his neck. Neville adores Ron’s fingers. They’re long and tapered and there are callouses in all the really good places.
Neville’s palms are damp inside the gloves and he wiggles his fingers in the dirt to free them. “Of course I am, you said… um, what’d you say again?” he asks, sitting back on his haunches and swiping his arm across his forehead. He doesn’t actually have fringe or long hair of any sort anymore, but he’s not yet accustomed to the short fuzz and sometimes he can still feel hair where there isn’t any.
Ron leans against the wall, crossing his feet at the ankles and slipping his hands into his pockets. Ron’s impossibly tall, but Neville’s not exactly short himself and he’s never really noticed the freckles on Ron’s forearms before, but now that he’s eye level with Ron’s wrists and, um, Ron’s groin...
“I said I planned to shag Harry in the Great Hall and then ask Snape to marry me.”
“Right. Have at it,” Neville says, attempting to drag his eyes away from the entirely-too-tempting photograph Ron’s making, so he can get back to the posies in front of him. Maybe if he finishes playing in the dirt at some point today, he and Ron can do things.
Dirty, illicit, filthy things in the back of the greenhouse.
Neville can’t help laughing to himself under his breath. It must be something in the dirt that he reacts to, as he’s fairly certain no one else gets horny surrounded by dirt and plants, but the thought of pulling Ron down on the floor and then smearing dirt all over his white button-down has Neville very attuned to how close Ron really is to him. Which is obviously why he snaps the head off a defenseless flower. The resulting trilling dirge from the other posies breaks him right out of his reverie yet again.
“You’re really not listening to a word I’m saying are you?” Neville shakes his head when Ron’s bright eyes peer into his face, and he blinks twice before he realises that Ron’s dropped down next to him on the greenhouse floor. As far as schoolboy fantasies go, this one could turn out to be really good for Neville, except that Ron seems a bit concerned and Neville can’t have that. Even though when Ron’s concerned he gets this line between his eyebrows that Neville finds really hot.
“Sorry,” he says sheepishly, pulling a glove off and rubbing his head. “I get a bit distracted when I’m working.”
“Is that why you just murdered that flower?”
“It was an accident!” Neville says.
Ron’s gaze is all careful consideration, and Neville absently brushes the front of his shirt in case it’s filthy. Well, filthier that he already is for being in the dirt and thinking about licking that hollow at the base of Ron’s throat.
“Where’d you go, just then?” Ron asks.
Neville makes a noise. “Um, nowhere?”
“Right. Pull the other one -- it’s got bells on.” Ron’s scowl is the last thing Neville’s expecting.
“Sorry -- what?”
“You’ve been acting out of sorts all afternoon. First, by the shed, and now here. Is there something you want to tell me? Are you trying to break it off with me?”
“What? Sorry? Where – what? Have I missed something?” Neville has no idea what’s happening right now. He and Ron are having a conversation, but they’re not speaking the same language at all. It’s like out by the tree again, with the shagging, or not so much with the shagging; maybe it’s a dialect of Boy Gibberish that Neville’s not learned yet.
Whatever language Ron’s speaking, it’s clear that Neville needs to learn it in a hurry, especially since Ron is getting to his feet. Ron really is impossibly tall, all legs and freckles; Neville’s done for. So why’s Ron leaving?
Neville can’t have that.
“Sit. Down,” says someone who sounds quite a bit like Neville. Except that Neville’s voice isn’t usually that deep or that forceful. Unless he’s upset, which he thinks he might be.
Neville tilts his head back to find Ron staring at him as though he’s just sprouted antennae. Not that Neville could really blame him, but this is important. “I said, ‘Sit down, Ron’. Please.”
“Are you ordering me about?” Incredulous doesn’t really begin to cover Ron’s tone, and Neville’s not certain what to call the look on Ron’s face. ‘Shocked’ might work for starters.
“I haven’t the foggiest idea what you’re on about, so I’ll thank you to sit down, stop acting like a wronged girlfriend and explain yourself. Please.” Neville clearly enunciates every word as he takes off his other glove and hurtles it into the dirt. He winces when one of the posies makes an injured noise. Professor Sprout is going to flay him.
“Are you calling me a girl?” The pitch of Ron’s voice seems to be all over the register. One moment it’s very low and the next it’s impossibly high and tight; his eyes glitter defiantly, even in the filtered greenhouse light, and Neville swallows.
“I’m not calling you anything,” he says. “Maybe that’s the problem.”
“You’ve lost me,” Ron begins, causing Neville’s chest to seize up in a horrible manner. “I have no idea what’s going on in your head today. You want to shag, you murder flowers and then you yell. What’ve you done with Neville Longbottom, that bloke I was dating?”
“It is me,” Neville protests glancing at his lap and then patting his head his head the same time to make certain about the antennae. “I’ve not changed at all; I’m the same bloke I always was, I just – are you going to stand about all day?’
“Maybe. Don’t know yet. Haven’t decided.”
Ron shifts from one foot to the other, slipping his hands into his pockets again. It takes a lot of Neville’s willpower not to just stare at Ron’s crotch. “Do you enjoy being this impossible?” he asks.
“Me? I’m not the one crawling about on my hands and knees with my arse in the air or rolling about in the dirt in my tee shirt that shows off my stomach, making my boyfriend’s trousers too tight!”
The noise Neville makes doesn’t really have a description. “Uh, sorry?”
“Too fucking right,” Ron snaps. He scratches his head, and then crouches down to Neville’s eyelevel. “You’re more trouble than any girl I’ve ever met, Neville. Could you not have really long eyelashes and a really fit arse? Is that too much to ask?”
“Uh, no?” Neville licks his lips only because he’s mirroring Ron, except he bets that Ron’s lips don’t taste like pumpkin juice and dirt. Neville’s fingers twitch when Ron puts a hand down to steady himself.
“So what’s the problem then? Do you just not fancy me anymore? Found somebody else? I told Terry Boot if I caught him sniffing around you, again, I’d have him.“
The loud guffaw that escapes from Neville is less like a laugh and more like a noise of ‘stop taking the piss.’ “Ron.”
“Neville?”
“Shut up.”
Ron’s look of shock quickly slips into a smirk. “See, there you go again, being bossy. You’ve been spending too much time with Hermione.”
“Me? I’m not the one who’s spent the last seven years as part of Harryronhermione.” It’s entirely too easy for Neville to push Ron over right now. So he does.
There’s something refreshing about seeing Ron sprawled out on his arse that makes Neville grin – and he’s still grinning when he gets to his knees and crawls over Ron.
“Now what’s this about me and Terry Boot?” Neville’s eyes narrow as Ron licks his lips again and stretches out against the brick footpath.
Neville’s not necessarily used to being the one on top, but that doesn’t mean he’s used to being on the bottom either.
They’ll have to sort that out eventually. Or not.
Neville makes a noise when Ron’s fingers brush against his mouth. “I heard him saying you’d become quite the looker,” Ron says.
Neville’s brain whirrs and his arithmancy comes up with five sickles and eight gnuts. “Is that why he’s got a black eye?”
When Ron shrugs, Neville’s eyes are drawn down to the hollow of Ron’s neck. Ron seems to take a special sadistic delight in wearing his ties too loose and keeping the top button of his shirt undone. The pale expanse of freckled skin goes a long way to keeping Neville undone. Ron’s all muscle and sinew and tendon. Merlin’s beard.
“He slipped and met my fist, I couldn’t help that.”
This should be the part where Neville points out that he can fight his own battles, but instead he finds himself licking Ron’s neck, because it’s there and so is Ron and they’re seventeen year-old boys. They’re required to do this. At least that’s what the erection in Neville’s trousers is saying.
Ron makes a keening noise as Neville licks along the collar of his shirt.
“What’re you doing? Are you mad? We can’t do that here,” Ron protests even as he turns his head to the side to give Neville better access.
“Professor Sprout’s in Greenhouse A.” Neville’s lips brush against the shell of Ron’s ear as he talks, and he rides out Ron’s upward thrust when he nuzzles the spot behind his ear.
Ron tastes like soap and grass and Neville might be sniffing him. Which is just strange. But there’s something about being with Ron that makes Neville reckless and brave, or, his nan might say, stupid.
He smiles against Ron’s skin as long fingers begin rubbing Neville’s hair and pulling Neville toward Ron’s mouth. Whatever objections Ron has are apparently not important enough to stop him from snogging Neville senseless. They certainly don’t stop Ron from flicking his tongue along Neville’s upper lip or licking his way into Neville’s mouth until Neville’s not sure what his own name might be. That’s not even bringing into account the way the Ron’s, well, stroking Neville’s hair, or the way his hands seems to be everywhere at once.
Ron may be on the bottom, but his hands are slipping between Neville’s shirt and his trousers and guiding Neville’s hips towards his own; Ron must have more than two hands. To Neville it feels as though he has a million. Not that Neville’s complaining, because Ron’s hands are everywhere, and Neville can feel how hard Ron is underneath him. He did that.
Neville opens his mouth to say something at the same time that Ron’s thigh wedges between his legs, and Neville’s words become a big slur. “Dyouwantto?”
He doesn’t become any more coherent when Ron thrusts against him. “What’s that?” Ron asks.
“Do you want to shag me?”
Neville’s world comes to a horrific halt when Ron stops rubbing against him. “Why – why are you stopping?”
“Did you just –“ Ron’s voice echoes loudly in the greenhouse, and he lowers his volume drastically. “You did! Circe’s pigs, you just asked me to shag you?’
Neville can feel his face flushing, and he can’t figure out whether to flee or hide, and he attempts to pull away at the same time that Ron tries to pull him forward. They wind up rolling over into a patch of defenseless flowers as Neville buries his head in Ron’s neck.
Neville’s mumbling is somewhat drowned out by the posies’ cacophony of threats about ratting them out to Sprout. “I thought you wanted to.”
“I do!” Ron shouts. “I do,” he says again, speaking lower, and sitting up to look Neville in the eye, “but I didn’t necessarily mean here. This isn’t... Neville, these plants talk; we are not shagging in the greenhouse. I don’t care how keen you are on shrubery.”
“I don’t want to shag you in the greenhouse, either, I just thought--“
“You thought what?”
“I dunno. I mean, I fancy you and I like you and – I just wanted you to know that.”
“I know that. It doesn’t mean we have to shag now. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, shagging, but, um, it doesn’t have to happen today.”
“Oh, so you’ve gone off me?” Neville says.
“Not likely considering how you look right now,” Ron says pointedly staring at the disheveled state of Neville’s clothing, “but maybe we could go some place else?”
Neville’s silent for several seconds under Ron’s questioning gaze, and he’s just opening his mouth to speak when the door to the greenhouse creaks open and Ron freezes.
“Neville Longbottom?”
Neville would know Professor Sprout’s raspy voice anywhere.
“Neville Longbottom?! Are you in here?” The look of complete horror on Ron’s face can’t be that far off from the abject fear that Neville feels on his own. Of all the times to be found rolling in the dirt. Ron makes an ‘oomphing’ sound when Neville tackles him to the floor and covers Ron’s hand with his mouth.
Looking through the rows of tables and plants, Neville can see Professor Sprout’s mud-caked shoes walking their way. He bites his tongue and glares when Ron licks his hand.
“I could’ve sworn I saw him come in here. Ronald Weasley, are you in here? I saw someone with ginger hair come in here. You’d do best to show yourselves!”
Professor Sprout’s boots are coming closer, and Neville can just imagine the owl home to his nan now ...caught rolling in the dirt with Ronald Weasley... not the sort of behaviour one would expect from a Longbottom.
Neville’s just wondering who’s going to take care of Trevor when Professor Sprout’s feet stop two rows over. “Perhaps I shouldn’t partake of those Muggle plants during the work day,” she sighs before turning on her heel and heading back to the door.
Neville exhales deeply when the door shuts behind her, and then he removes his hand from Ron’s mouth.
“Did you want to have detention forever?” he snipes.
Ron doesn’t even have the grace to look apologetic. “If it meant I got to roll in the dirt with you for a bit, I can think of worse things.”
Neville blinks. “Have you been having dirty thoughts about me?”
“Possibly. Definitely,” Ron corrects.
“You’ll have to tell me about them later.”
“I think I can do that, but do you fancy getting off me, first, so we can avoid this detention you’re so riled up about?”
Neville’s sigh slips into a grin. “Well, if we must we must.”
“Anything for a good cause, right?”
“Of course.”
“And to think,” Ron says, “people call Harry the hero.”
-end-
Notes: This entire story inspired by Damien Rice’s ‘Delicate’ which is one of his *two* good songs. (The other one being Volcano).
Dedicated to my girls, who both seem to be having a shitty month, with much love and adoration for
lalejandra for beating this, and me, into shape. Neville's hysterical-antennae are dedicated to you.
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So so cute.
And Sprout! Smoking the weed during the day. I love it.
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*beams*
Neville, these plants talk; we are not shagging in the greenhouse. I don’t care how keen you are on your plants.
I can just imagine the plants spreading gossip to the portraits! OMG, a huge network of information, just waiting to be tapped!
Neville’s world comes to a horrific halt when Ron stops rubbing against him.
That's such a horrible moment. The panic! Oh!
Ron’s words are muffled somewhat as he spends several minutes looking down to roll up the sleeves of his shirt.
Awwww, so cute!
You want to shag, you murder flowers and then you yell. What’ve you done with Neville Longbottom, that bloke I was dating
DATING! BOYFRIEND! AUGH!!!!!
Ron seems to take a special sadistic delight in wearing his ties too loose and keeping the top button of his shirt undone. The pale expanse of freckled skin goes a long way to keeping Neville undone. Ron’s all muscle and sinew and tendon. Merlin’s beard.
That is so so so so so hot.
I would continue, but it's all in the same vein! I could pick out every single sentence and say something about it! Of course, no one dies or cries or is bloody, but I still thought this was brilliant and lovely.
xo.
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OMG! Insta!crack-fic!
Neville heard it from the posies, who apperently had heard it from a gossipy bluebird. The bluebird had overheard it while sitting outside an open window in Gryffindor tower, while the fat lady was spilling the goods to the milkmaid who was visiting from the portrait by the staircase to the Slytherin dungeon.
(something like that?)
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And I think it would be kind of neat to see more stories from the POV of Neville's pansies. Hee.
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I am now off to kill my boss. Yes.
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how Ron's eyelashes are almost invisible The eyelashes appear again! That's old school.
“I haven’t the foggiest idea what you’re on about, so I’ll thank you to sit down, stop acting like a wronged girlfriend and explain yourself. Please.” Neville clearly enunciates every word as he takes off his other glove and hurtles it into the dirt. He winces when one of the posies makes an injured noise. Professor Sprout is going to flay him.
“Are you calling me a girl?”
Ah, forceful ("It takes more courage to stand up to your friends.") Neville and silly Ron! I love them.
“So what’s the problem then? Do you just not fancy me anymore? Found somebody else? I told Terry Boot if I caught him sniffing around you, again, I’d have him.“
Bwahahaha! Terry is such a frickin' slut.
“I heard him saying you’d become quite the looker,” Ron says.
Neville’s brain whirrs and his arithmancy comes up with five sickles and eight gnuts. “Is that why he’s got a black eye?”
You know, I've seen some people complaining about characterizing Ron as a fighter, but I love him like that. What's not to love?
Neville can feel his face flushing, and he can’t figure out whether to flee or hide, and he attempts to pull away at the same time that Ron tries to pull him forward.
Ack, Ron you are a moron!
So cute. I know you will work your way through the list now with death fics.
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I'd totally forgotten that! You are so smaht!
You know, I've seen some people complaining about characterizing Ron as a fighter, but I love him like that. What's not to love?
I wrote you a whole story about this, dude.
So cute. I know you will work your way through the list now with death fics
Daeth! Destruction! Mayhem! Oh, and soap. Why do I have no Fight Club icon? This is v v sad.
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I love take-charge Neville. Love, love, love.
When Ron shrugs, Neville’s eyes are drawn down to the hollow of Ron’s neck. Ron seems to take a special sadistic delight in wearing his ties too loose and keeping the top button of his shirt undone. The pale expanse of freckled skin goes a long way to keeping Neville undone. Ron’s all muscle and sinew and tendon.
I am running out of ways to say JAILBAIT. You, however, are not.
Also, you are so right, you *know* Prof. Sprout partakes of herbal enhancements.
This was so cute, I know I said that already, but it's true. Neville and Ron just bring the cute. Thank you sweetie!
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I try to make it subtle so the cozzers and the prosecution will go easy on me.
Also, you are so right, you *know* Prof. Sprout partakes of herbal enhancements.
Wouldn't you? I'm so glad you liked the ending, yay!
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Oh, my. Loved. The chattering posies was a touch of brilliance, too.
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What a fantastic fic!
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Everyone should love Neville -- and I'm not just saying that because I adore him madly. Okay, that is why I'm saying that, but still.
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the dirt! the collarbones! ron's permanently dishevelled clothes! the confusion!
that was wonderful. it completely captured the confusion and excitement and anticipation and neediness of teenage sex.
i loved it muchly :)
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Although while I love Damien Rice's Volcano, I can't say it seems much like this fic. The song's always struck me as angsty (albeit really wonderful angst ;)).
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This was written for 'Delicate' not 'Volcano', so that might add to your confusion. I'm glad you enjoyed it all the same.
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And Sprout the pothead is amusing.
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It must be something in the dirt that he reacts to, as he’s fairly certain no one else gets horny surrounded by dirt and plants, but the thought of pulling Ron down on the floor and then smearing dirt all over his white button-down has Neville very attuned to how close Ron really is to him.
Yeah, not no one else, especially when it's worded like this. Hooboy, I love the plant smut.
This was just a heck of a lot of fun. :D
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I want to say a million things about this, but I've just read it at work and the boss is suddenly back and I have no TIME and who knows if LJ will still be working at all later. Ack.
You have got me shipping Ron/Neville in such a big way. Plus. Antennae mention. And. Other things. omg the DIRT. *loves*
Ack.
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OMG, I *hate* it when that happens.
You have got me shipping Ron/Neville in such a big way.
Yes! That's what I like to hear, you've made me a very happy writer.
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*LOFFS*
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thank you!
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And Ron is so hot. Hee.
::pouts:: I love Damien Rice, though! Hrmph. :P
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Your writing is just wonderful, so vivid and sensory. This Neville… Oh, so spot-on. We're inside his head, and he's so confused and hopeful and such a teenage boy! Really charming dialogue. And toking!Sprout.
Thanks so much for sharing this. Every time I read it, I smile all the way through.